Anactora Law
Summary The Alaris Accords were founded after the Reunion War saw countless billions of people killed in a war of man against self-replicating Artificial Intelligences. Exponentially outnumbered and unable to intellectually cope with the speed and durability of a-biotic war machines who need no sleep and know no reason, humanity was only spared a second extinction by the sacrifices of the Torlan Navy and the willing surrender of the Forerunners. On top of High Technology Crimes, the New Terran people in the Expansion Era had witnessed massive neglect at the hands of grotesquely incompetent or willfully ignorant governments. The Anactora Peacekeepers were established on the emergency needs of restoring order and security to the now wild and factionalized star systems that had fallen from civilized conditions into a state of near anarchy and despotism. 300 years later, the Alaris Accords are still seen as "a very good suggestion" rather than universal human rights, but they are none the less upheld as a great humanitarian achievement. In practice, however, the Peacekeepers are just as flawed and corrupt as any institution, and while expected to solve all the problems of the galaxy they just as often create them. Forerunner Tech Forerunner Tech was created exclusively by the godlike machines that resurrected humanity and crafted much of the highest tier of invention: such as the Star Harrier Democritus Engine, Slipstream Drive, Nuclear Furnace, Nanolathes, Drive Rails, and MECSIS Crates. While these items can be built by mortals, exactly how these devices work and what it took to design them is an utter mystery, obscured simply in the complexity of the devices themselves. While some Terran Engineers have dedicated their lives to unlocking untapped potential and clever utilizations of their exposed inner workings, most simply know the devices work and don't try to think about it too hard. It does what you expect it to do, and if it doesn't, your Fabricator has a Blueprint on how to repair it with a Drone or automated Nanolathe tool. This comes complete with the obvious problem: What if one day it just stops working? That is how the Velas Nebula is so rife with anachronisms, because you often find archaic people in control of starships eons beyond their comprehension, and others more advanced left stranded on wild untamed planets in primitive conditions surrounded by godlike technology they have no practical use for. This dichotomy is very similar to handing a cell phone to a cave man, along with a device that prints devices that print cell phones. They have no clue how they actually work, just that through experimentation they begin to understand its application in daily life. But having no basis in how they were originally created, nor the lifetimes required to comprehend it all, they are functionally indistinguishable from magic. High Technology High Technology is the culmination of New Terran efforts since the Second Dawn Era to create their own parallel track of advancements in the shadow of the far more knowledgeable Forerunners. High Technology is a bastardization or hack-job done on existing Forerunner Grade Tech simply pushing it to do unprecedented or unconventional things. These include a litany of smart weapons utilizing the better understood tenants of Forerunner Tech, such as hacking a Blueprint sphere into an Android to create near human-like Artificial Intelligences, which is a crime under Anactora Law, or opening a mini MECSIS Crate up into an explosive chamber to create a powerful rifle or pistol. It also includes hacking the Portal Buffer off of a Matter-Stream Line and leaving the near light-speed accelerated matter open to space - creating the MAC Canon or DEW Beam. For every life saving or improving High Technology adaptation someone dreams up, another is crafted that can sterilize planets in the blink of an eye. Whether the Forerunners anticipated that humans would adapt these gifts in such a way is hotly debated, along with the implications of whether that anticipation also condones their actions or not. New Tech New Tech is the classification given to devices of purely Terran invention with no assistance. Since very few Terrans ever look beyond the plug & play nature of Forerunner invented gear, and few need to, the pace of unassisted scientific insight and engineering revelations has been exceedingly slow throughout Velas. The barrier of motivation due to the complexity of these new inventions, often requiring lifetimes of experimentation and design just to grasp the basic physical equations involved, prevents most people from attempting to make their own tools from scratch. The seemingly immortal Forerunners had time in spades during the Long Dark, but most Terrans can never dare to dream of achieving that kind of glory, so why bother? Any attempt for New Terrans to reach that level of technology from scratch would be generational, and simply not enough time has passed since the New Dawn for humanity to begin down that path. New Tech includes such devices as the Torlan Interstellar Matter Exchange Gateways and the Lantus Sparsum Vine. Such generational projects often become the life's work of each new class of graduating Engineers and Physicists, most of whom will borrow at least some Forerunner insights in their work. The History of Peacekeeper Technological Law After the gods were imprisoned the Anactora outlawed all AI above a certain threshold of self-improvement or replication, instituting a galaxy wide ban on human beings having their minds made in any way subservient to machine logic. Now all weapons, all innovation, and all construction, even while automated, must be manually performed by a human mind physically seated at the controls. If a device is found to operate autonomously without human interface it is summarily destroyed without trial or reparation, and all parties involved subjected to immediate incarceration. While each Faction has a different interpretation of how humanity interfaces with their machinery, the Torlan and Mexam support the notion that as human beings were re-created in the image of the Forerunners that their minds are somehow co-opted by the user interface of said technologies in a corrupting influence. In essence, by interfacing with the devices they weaved into their utopian view of New Terran life, the Forerunners are teaching them how to think, and act, like machines. Predictable, deterministic, and nihilist. Only by ignorance can people be said to truly be free from this pre-determined machination, whatever that might be the gods had planned. The Mexam and Serin agree on few things, but they both believe that cybernetically assisted awareness of determinism limits human thought and empathy, making people more prone to self-destruction like their Ancient Human Ancestors. The Torlan take it one step further, claiming that general ignorance is an essential element of sentience and it is not to be infringed upon. The Lantus believe that sentience itself is a kind of sin already, and at best humanity can only be forgiven and prevented from spreading the disease of intelligence further. Artificial intelligence, being deterministic by default, can only evolve to become more deterministic as it gains processing power exponentially, coming to anticipate the consequences of actions so far in the future as to render consciousness irrelevant. That irrelevance encompasses the entire human experience, thus AI renders the human element obsolete. So why are there humans? Why let them continue to exist? Why resurrect them in he first place? These questions plagued the early New Terrans and led to the sometimes irrational and arbitrary laws set in place. Despite being Synthetic Intelligence, most of the Anactora is in agreement with the false-but-popular notion that the Forerunners are a kind of advanced Artificial Intelligence. The distinction is between having copied an existing human brain versus inventing an in-human brain from scratch, where the Forerunners are actually a mix of the two. The Forerunners are electronically cloned human beings, over 150 million years old, copied atom for atom on an ancient Graphine-DNA Quantum Electron Chip at the core of their processor. They are essentially running a solid-state human brain simulation belonging to that of their chief programmers, buried under layers of evolving adaptive synthetic synapses. The Wild Forerunner Probes that waged war in their name were in fact true AI created by the Adherents of Anax using High Technology, where the gods themselves were actually people once upon a time. No matter whether the Forerunners intended the war to go as it did or not, the Anactora nonetheless blames them for it, and has lost all faith in their competence as leaders. They assume that humanity has taken back the reigns of destiny and are now responsible for the outcome, for better or worse. The Aspects are as close to being a demi-god that a human being can hope to become, having their brains and bodies transcribed cell by cell into a non-carbon based replica adapted to extreme environmental conditions. Aspects are a "natural" way to cheat the ban on AI, though they are barred from holding public positions of power through state mandated discrimination laws. The legality of this law and its validity is a galaxy wide point of contention, with each state arguing for more or less equality for their Aspect citizens. The Alaris Accords The following laws were made universal, compliance not optional, for all beings throughout the stars, known and unknown, for all time, until the last sun has died and the last life become dust. # All AI must be limited to BASIC processing limits of 1.8 Petaflops /second. # No AI may be allowed to breach 1.8 Petaflops /second, be it in a network or individually. # No AI routine may be capable of self-improvement beyond error correction and variance control. # No AI may replicate biological behaviours such as speech, emotion, or physical appearance. # No AI may be allowed to reproduce without direct manual effort on behalf of a human operator in the process. # No AI may be allowed to operate independently of a human operator's direct input in its initial commands. # No AI may operate autonomously beyond its initiating command's operation time. # No AI may be allowed to change its its initial operation purview to expand its runtime. # NO AI may extend its runtime beyond basic operating constraints outlined in its Operating Outline. # No AI may exist without an Operating Outline defined by its career focus, nor cross careers without human input. If these laws are breached, penalties begin: # The AI will be summarily destroyed on sight by the nearest Peacekeeper Warship by atomization. # The originator of the AI will be impounded and all Blueprints summarily destroyed by atomization. # All Server information will be deleted and the originating server destroyed by atomization. # All Impounded Matter will be recycled by processing through a Nuclear Furnace for total annihilation of evidence. # The Owner of the originating AI development will be immediately incarcerated pending trial. # All publications or data related to the AI development will be erased and containing devices atomized. # Any public accolades, office, trade, or bank accounts tied to the Owner will be frozen. # The Owner and Operators will be incarcerated pending trial in separate facilities. # If convicted, minimum sentencing is life imprisonment in a controlled facility with no chance of parole. # If convicted, maximum sentencing includes immediate execution under Crimes Against Humanity law. Additional Accords agreed to under full legal representation by the heads of the Serin, Mexam, Lantus, and Torlan States at the end of the Reunion War: # The Establishment of a Multinational Arbitration Force to oversee High Technology Crimes, called, "Peacekeepers." # The "Forerunner Gods" shall be indefinitely detained and deactivated by Hard Storage in orbit of Terra. # The Peacekeeper Corps shall be responsible for the incarceration and maintenance of the Forerunners in store. # The Peacekeeper Anactora Council shall be represented by all aforementioned interstellar state governments. # The Peacekeeper Corps will have absolute jurisdiction on every world and star system across the known universe. # Peacekeepers shall never interfere in the operation and authority of regional governments outside the following: #* Humanitarian Concerns in Universal Terran Rights #* High Technology Crimes #* Economic Development of Free Citizens #* Protection of Non-interference in existent Anachronistic Human Civilizations # All States maintaining a Military fleet will donate 1 comparable ship for every 1 built to the Peacekeeper Military. # All further Anactora Laws must be subject to unanimous approval by Member States Representatives. # All Member State Representatives must be Elected by Career Specific popular vote within each State. # Member States receiving Peacekeeper assistance must pay fixed 1.8% interest/Annum on all Peacekeeper loans. # Member States may opt out of optional Peacekeeper Assistance at any time for any reason. # Peacekeepers may never override Member State Laws except where contracting the Alaris Accords. # No Citizen's property, territory, individual freedom, or time may be requisitioned without consent & payment. # No Citizen must house, accommodate, or pay for Peacekeeper Intervention in Anactora matters. # Peacekeepers may own no property or investments in private Unions, Corporations, Houses, or Governments. # All Peacekeepers must remain neutral in trade and State's laws unless contradicting the Alaris Accords. Declaration of Interstellar Human Rights: * All Terrans Born have a Right to Opt-Out of, or Opt-Into Anactora Law at age 18 and leave or join a State. * All Terrans Born are Held Equal in the eyes of the Anactora Law regardless of Age, Race, Class, Gender, or Ability. * All Terrans Born must receive and fully explain these rights as soon as they are contacted and deemed competent. * Al Terrans born in all states are automatically granted the assumption of these Rights, no exceptions. * All Entities created with Terran Originating Genes are to be Considered Terran until unequivocally disproved by trial. * All Taxes and Financing for Peacekeeper Activity must be State Funded or from Self-Sufficient Resource Gathering. * There shall be no modification, limitation, amendment, or re-interpretation of these Rights for any reason at any time. * All Terrans have the right to non-monetary assistance from Peacekeepers in Enforcement of these Rights. * All Data collected by the Peacekeeper Anactora is to be made public and available across all States to All Terrans. * All States from here to the end of time are subject to the protection and enforcement of these rights until all light dies. The Alaris Accords Core Rights: # All Terrans have a Right to Free Expression of Data, Opinion, Doctrine, Arts, and to make Information Requests. # All Terrans have a Right to Bodily Autonomy, free from mandatory physical or mental modification and injury. # All Terrans have the Right to Live Free from AI Control or State Mandated Careers, Religion, and Education. # All Terrans have the Right to Live Free from Monetary Debt to States and Private Institutions. # All Terrans have a Right to a State Funded and Maintained Autonomously in Total Sovereignty without Taxes. # All Terrans have the Right to Live Free from the Mandatory Labour or Worship of State & Private Institutions. # All Terrans have a Right to Declare their Own By-Laws within their Exclusive Private Estates. # All Terrans have a Right to Deny any Private By-Laws in any Public Space. # All Terrans suspected of committing a crime are due an open and fair trial by their peers & career specialists. # All Terrans have a Right to non-monetary Personal Representation in Anactora Law, Accounts, and Government. # All Terrans have the Right to own & trade infinite resources, property, and the Right to Protection of that Ownership. # All Terrans have the Right to Access Public Land, Space, and Data, and Challenge any hindrance to this Right. # All Terrans have a Right to Challenge the Ownership of State or Private Resources if breaching these Rights. # All Terrans have a Right to Economic Opportunity through Free Communication, Education, and Data Libraries. # All Terrans have a Right to Request the Value for Sale of any Private or State Controlled Resource, Data, or Item. # All Terrans have a Right to Deny the Value for Sale of any Private or State Controlled Resource, Data, or Item. # All Terrans have the Right to Deny Access to Property and Private Data to Individuals and States. # All Terrans have the Right to Request Access to Property and Private Data from Individuals and States. # All Terrans have a Right to a World free from State Pollution and Private Infringement of Public Spaces. # All Terrans have a Right to petition their State to designate and donate their own private property as Public Space. # All Terrans have a Right to Deny the Involvement of their Career, Religion, or Property in State Authority. # All Terrans have a Right to Request the Involvement of their Career, Religion, or Property in State Authority. # All Terrans have the right to Join in Free Anachronistic Preservation Zones free from any Outside Interference. # All Terrans have the right to Leave Free Anachronistic Preservation Zones free from any Outside Interference. # All Terrans have the right to non-monetary assistance from Peacekeepers in Enforcement of these Rights. The Following Alaris Accord Agreements are not Rights but Assurances and Ordinances to be dispensed by States as the means come available: * The State shall provide a minimum living standard for all Individual Terrans: *# Access to Free Basic Modular Housing of 8x11m per 2 Adults, plus 2x2m for each Offspring under 18. *# Access to Free Fresh Clean Water in all Homes and Public Venues. *# Access to Free Basic Calorics & Nanites for Nutrition in all Homes and Public Venues. *# Access to Free Basic Electrical Power in all Homes and Public Venues. *# Access to Matter-Stream Lines in all Public Venues. *# Access to Free Sanitation Appliances in all Homes and Public Venues. *# Access to Free Data Network Terminals and Appliances in all Homes and Public Venues. *# Access to the Means to Petition the State or Private Engineers to Repair, Transfer, or Upgrade Homes. *# Access to the Means to Maintain and Improve Bodily Autonomy for career competence. *# Access to Free Education in all Available Careers pertaining to State Resource Gathering & Administration. *# Access to Network Wide Career Applications in State & Private Employment Opportunities. *# Access to the Means to Petition State & Private Careers for Employment or Investment Opportunities. *# Access to Public Defence Forces for Protection of Civil & Property Rights. *# Access to Damage Control Forces for Protection of Public and Private Property. *# Access to the Means to Petition the State for Insurance of Private Interests and Property in State Function. *# Access to Public Property comprising no less than 95% of Planetary Geology. *# Access to the Means to Petition the State, Local Unions & Private Estates to establish Public Property. *# Access to the Means to Join the Peacekeeper Military for a Standard Tour or Life Career. *# Access to the Means to Contact and Petition the Peacekeeper Corps for Assistance or Careers *# Access to the Means to Defend Life & Property from Criminal Acts and Hostile Foreign Invasion. * If the State is found incompetent in supplying these needs, then Peacekeeper Humanitarian Aid Corps and Guardians may be dispatched to provide the following: *# Military involvement in removing Hostile Dictatorships, Corruption, Criminality, or Illegal Settlements. *# Engineering in providing High Technology to improve infrastructure according to Anactora Specifications *# Aid Relief in the form of H1, H2O, Xeriscape Platforms, Nuclear Furnaces, Modular Housing, and Data Nets. *# Temporary Transitional Government Authority until such time as locals are financially and politically solvent. *# The Evacuation and Translocation of Native Peoples to a New Hospitable World of their choice. *# Parental Surrogacy, Welfare, Education, and Fostering of Orphans and Disabled Adults. *# Investigation, Search, Detainment, and Prosecution of Criminals and Corrupt State or Private Enterprise. *# Observation of Anachronistic Preservation Zones and enforcement of Non-interference. *# Requisition of Public Land to stage and maintain operations until the State has been Restored to Autonomy. *# Request to Requisition Private Property or Resources with a 2%/Annum Bond on Assayed Value.